In the test, 25 percent of a car's front end on the driver side strikes a 5-foot-tall rigid barrier at 40 mph. The test is designed to replicate what happens when the front corner of a car collides with another vehicle or an object like a tree or utility pole.

Only 3 of 11 midsize luxury and near-luxury cars evaluated earn good or acceptable ratings in the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's new small overlap frontal crash test, the latest addition to a suite of tests designed to help consumers pick the safest vehicles.

It's incredible the amount of difference just a quarter of the cars width makes to the overall results! Not surprised to see S60 on top - very surprised to see the likes of C-Class and A4 down the bottom!

swizzle

08-20-2012, 02:23 PM

This is also a dubious test at best. It's an arbitrary measure by the IIHS. What's next? Dropping cars from helicopters a mile above the ground? The first point is that this is NOT an "industry/world standard" test. The second point is that modern cars ARE sufficiently safe without having to result to a nanny state mentality where we cover every possible contingency that might happen in theory. The problem is that idiot consumers will have a paroxysm of outrage and more stupid rules will be imposed.

mario_128

08-21-2012, 02:02 AM

This is such a common accident that it should be part of the testing. Car makers will do the bare minimum to get 5 stars. this will keep them on there toes.

fou_bleu

08-21-2012, 02:04 AM

This is also a dubious test at best. It's an arbitrary measure by the IIHS. What's next? Dropping cars from helicopters a mile above the ground? The first point is that this is NOT an "industry/world standard" test. The second point is that modern cars ARE sufficiently safe without having to result to a nanny state mentality where we cover every possible contingency that might happen in theory. The problem is that idiot consumers will have a paroxysm of outrage and more stupid rules will be imposed.

This is such a common accident that it should be part of the testing. Car makers will do the bare minimum to get 5 stars. this will keep them on there toes.

Exactly. Whenever a new crash test is introduced, everyone (especially makers of cars that fail) screams "oh no, that's unrealistic". After 2-3 years, it's the most normal and commonm thing.

Also one should face that the current 40-50% overleap 4ß0mph test (NCAP) is basically more than 15 years old standard, no wonder eve5ryone passes tehm today brilliantly (except most Chinese cars), still, in real life, there are well huge differences between safety stanbdards of cars. Soem - like Volvo - offer real safety in most situations (tehre will never be a car where every possible crash is survivable), and otehrs are made specificly with crash test's in their mind.

A small overleap is indeed rather common, at least in Europe, as a typical result of a car trying to avoid an oncoming vehicle on a B-road and not managing it. Go to a local fiore brigade or junk yard to see damaged vehicles. And have a look how many of them are full frontal 100% (barely any), and how many have a small to minimal overleap

pjl35

08-22-2012, 11:53 PM

This is also a dubious test at best. It's an arbitrary measure by the IIHS. What's next? Dropping cars from helicopters a mile above the ground? The first point is that this is NOT an "industry/world standard" test. The second point is that modern cars ARE sufficiently safe without having to result to a nanny state mentality where we cover every possible contingency that might happen in theory. The problem is that idiot consumers will have a paroxysm of outrage and more stupid rules will be imposed.

Explain how this is arbitrary. This is in no way analogous to "dropping cars from helicopters." Are you kidding? This is a very common type of accident.

Even if it wasn't...why can't the IIHS introduce new tests to make cars even safer? If you follow your argument to its logical conclusion, you're basically saying "modern cars are safe, we never have to even try to make them safer." why.

swizzle

08-26-2012, 09:53 PM

Explain how this is arbitrary. This is in no way analogous to "dropping cars from helicopters." Are you kidding? This is a very common type of accident.

Even if it wasn't...why can't the IIHS introduce new tests to make cars even safer? If you follow your argument to its logical conclusion, you're basically saying "modern cars are safe, we never have to even try to make them safer." why.

Where is the evidence that the majority of car crashes are a 25% offset? Logically, if that were true, that would have been the first requirement of enhanced safety. Secondly, the IIHS is in the business of creating ways for insurance companies to be able to charge their customers higher premiums and is NOT NOT NOT in the business of car safety. Cars have all reached some pretty amazing standards and that drives incidents down and with fewer incidents down go premium rates.

And here we have a test that renders virtually all cars "unsafe" and the next foot that will drop will be an increased policy rate to consumers and even higher profits for the big insurance companies. The IIHS is not on your side. They are on the side of driving insurance industry profits and always have been.

You have also assigned an illogical outcome to what I said. The logical outcome is NOT "modern cars are safe, we never have to even try to make them safer." but rather "modern cars are sufficiently safe, and while we could try to make them safer, we have reached the point of diminishing returns."

But hey, if you want to drive a four ton Focus, call up the IIHS and have them come up with more dubious tests to shock and stun consumers.

mick78

08-27-2012, 07:21 AM

You have also assigned an illogical outcome to what I said. The logical outcome is NOT "modern cars are safe, we never have to even try to make them safer." but rather "modern cars are sufficiently safe, and while we could try to make them safer, we have reached the point of diminishing returns."

But hey, if you want to drive a four ton Focus, call up the IIHS and have them come up with more dubious tests to shock and stun consumers.

I don't think a 4 ton Focus is anyone's wish.

However, if a car is sufficiently safe, is another story - this small overleap, which at least on European B-roads is a rather common mistake, shows that, classically known NCAP etc. crash tests aside, there are still huge differences. And I think this is an important point - many cars are built to shine in standardized crash tests (without offering probably the same real life crash sfaety as a, say, on NCAP star less Volvo, e.g.), just like some shine in laboratory MPG figures without being ever reproducable in real driving conditions.

I think the fact that this crash was done with the same speed as ususal, shows that the 40mph crash speed is sufficient for today's driving condtitons. Testing with 70 or 80mph would indeed result in tanks. But varying crash situations, so that cras have to distribute their safety features and not only shine in a 50% 40mph obverleapo standard crash test, that should be in the interest of people. Btw., I don't think the Volvo S60 is much heavier (if at all) than say an Audi A4 or Lexus IS. Just more cleverly built.

pjl35

08-27-2012, 10:48 PM

Where is the evidence that the majority of car crashes are a 25% offset? Logically, if that were true, that would have been the first requirement of enhanced safety. Secondly, the IIHS is in the business of creating ways for insurance companies to be able to charge their customers higher premiums and is NOT NOT NOT in the business of car safety. Cars have all reached some pretty amazing standards and that drives incidents down and with fewer incidents down go premium rates.

And here we have a test that renders virtually all cars "unsafe" and the next foot that will drop will be an increased policy rate to consumers and even higher profits for the big insurance companies. The IIHS is not on your side. They are on the side of driving insurance industry profits and always have been.

You have also assigned an illogical outcome to what I said. The logical outcome is NOT "modern cars are safe, we never have to even try to make them safer." but rather "modern cars are sufficiently safe, and while we could try to make them safer, we have reached the point of diminishing returns."

But hey, if you want to drive a four ton Focus, call up the IIHS and have them come up with more dubious tests to shock and stun consumers.

Nice conspiracy theory. Clearly the IIHS has done NOTHING for car safety or contributed to society besides increasing insurance premiums. No one ever said that this type of accident is the majority type of crashes, but there are studies to support the number and risk of injury with these types of accidents. http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv21/09-0423.pdf

That's just one example, I'm happy to provide more. The study notes previous research suggesting these types of crashes account for over 20% of fatalities. A pretty significant number if you ask me. What type of accident do you think happens when someone crosses the median and clips an oncoming car?

I don't know what world you're living in, but those types of crashes are most definitely a common occurrence, especially compared to, oh I don't know, a FULL head-on collision, which the IIHS has been testing for years. It's not common for people to be driving into large flat walls, but I don't see you arguing that that type of test is somehow arbitrary or useless.

Also, why on earth would the Focus have to be four tons? The S60 did pretty well in this test...you must be shocked to realize it's not that heavy.

Comrade

09-13-2012, 03:53 PM

Honestly you can't blame companies for failing this test because the test didn't exist until AFTER they had designed the car. They have done their part to design cars that pass existing safety tests. So all they can do is applaud Volvo for being a safety pioneer and learn from them. The design of Volvo's front structure doesn't seem that complicated, but it DOES require a full redesign.

mick78

09-13-2012, 04:05 PM

Honestly you can't blame companies for failing this test because the test didn't exist until AFTER they had designed the car. They have done their part to design cars that pass existing safety tests. So all they can do is applaud Volvo for being a safety pioneer and learn from them. The design of Volvo's front structure doesn't seem that complicated, but it DOES require a full redesign.

Well, it does show, that some companies (or at least Volvo), design their cars with real life accidents in mind, so that basically most standards (even new ones shouldn't be a problem, whilst others "optimize" their cars for standardized tests, which don't automatically mean much better real life safety.